(1) FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to a data inputting apparatus. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a data inputting apparatus such as a document forming apparatus for entering desired character/symbol data and for printing a desired document.
(2) DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
In the conventional document forming apparatuses such as wordprocessors, keyboards are utilized as the data inputting apparatus, and such various command keys as the character entry keys and the symbol entry keys provided on the keyboards are selectively depressed to enter desired data of character strings.
That is, a large number of character entry keys are provided on a keyboard of a wordprocessor so as to input characters and symbols, e.g., alphabetical numerals and alphabetical symbols. In addition, a large quantity of other specifical keys are provided on this keyboard. As these special keys, there are special designation keys, cursor keys, command keys and so on. The special designation keys are to designate typing sizes of characters, for instance, 1.times.1/2 (horizontal size of character being 1/2 of standard horizontal size) and 1.times.2 (horizontal size of character being 2 times wider than standard horizontal size), and also to designate character ornamentation such as framing, meshing and underlining. The cursor keys are to positionally control cursors displayed on screens of liquid crystal display units and CRT display units while documents are edited. Then, the command keys are numeral entry keys for entering numeral data, function keys, a return key, and control keys.
As previously explained, large quantities of keys are employed on the keyboards of the conventional document forming apparatuses in order to carry out such various process operations as data entry operations, document editing operations, and printing operations. These keys are independently arranged on each keyboard in correspondence with various functions to designate sorts of characters/symbols of input data, and furthermore typing sizes and character ornamentation.
Indeed, such a keyboard having a large number of keys is very useful as the data inputting apparatus for the document forming apparatus, e.g., the wordprocessor capable of forming the document containing a large amount of character/symbol information, because a great amount of such information must be entered at high speeds. However, the above-described keyboard equipped with many data entry/function keys would cause the following problems in a simple document forming apparatus, for example, a label printer in which a small number of character entry keys are employed to enter a limited number of character data and print these character data on a label tape.
That is, a label printer corresponds to a simple document forming apparatus. Although the document editing/printing performances of this simple document forming apparatus are rather inferior to those of the normal document forming apparatus such as wordprocessors, the simple document forming apparatus requires the substantially same sorts and functions of character and symbol data to be entered, as compared with those of the normal document forming apparatus. Nevertheless, since the label printers are made portable and compact, the space allowed to employ the key inputting unit on the main body of the label printer should be made small, so that only limited numbers of keys are available in this key inputting unit. To the contrary, when a large number of keys would be provided on the keyboard of the label printer, the sizes of the respective keys should be made small, resulting in difficulties of key operations.
Moreover, although the label printers are generally low cost products, as compared with the wordprocessors, since these label printers must be equipped with the key inputting units having the complex structures and also a large number of keys, the manufacturing cost of such label printers would be increased.